


Hallelujah

by GenuineAngel



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 08:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19460629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GenuineAngel/pseuds/GenuineAngel
Summary: Through his drunken haze Crowley seemed to realise that the angel hadn't believed him. While he didn't press the matter in that moment, he continued to bring it up over the next few years. Each declaration became increasingly more insistent, challenging Aziraphale to argue, to give him something to refute. But every time the angel responded with the same soft smile that never really reached his eyes.





	Hallelujah

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a long time since I wrote my last creative piece. I heard Hallelujah playing somewhere between my twentieth Good Omens re-read and my seventh Good Omens re-watch, though, and I couldn't shake this idea. Guess I'm back on my bullshit.
> 
> Please be gentle.
> 
> ____
> 
> Baby, I've been here before  
> I've seen this room and I've walked this floor  
> I used to live alone before I knew you  
> And I've seen your flag on the marble arch  
> But love is not a victory march  
> It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

Crowley didn't really understand love.

It was part and parcel of his having been removed from the presence of the Lord. Aziraphale knew that. Affection, maybe. Lust? Most certainly, and that particular iniquity was one Crowley wielded with frightening deftness. But his ability to truly experience _love_ had been torn from him as he Fell.

Still, Aziraphale held a tiny spark of hope somewhere too deep to express within a corporeal form. A glowing ember that was fanned by the lean of Crowley's body towards his, the fond smiles and thoughtful gestures. Each of these continued the slow spread of warmth through Aziraphale until every centimetre was filled with a quiet certainty that something inside the demon retained the after image of having once been formed from love itself. They had come from the same original stock, after all.

This made it all the more cruel when, soon after the Apocalypse-that-wasn't, a very drunk Crowley had professed his love for the angel. The warmth within Aziraphale had been prepared to burst wholly into flame. Every fibre of his being wanted desperately to believe the sugar coated, slurred words leaving the demon's lips. But something gave him pause. Crowley believed what he was saying, Aziraphale could tell. But there was no real truth behind the words. There was no substance. Even as he smiled and reached out to pat Crowley's hand, Aziraphale felt something inside himself break.

Through his drunken haze Crowley seemed to realise that the angel hadn't believed him. While he didn't press the matter in that moment, he continued to bring it up over the next few years. Each declaration became increasingly more insistent, challenging Aziraphale to argue, to give him something to refute. But every time the angel responded with the same soft smile that never really reached his eyes. Crowley meant well, but he didn't understand that love - the _real_ love he meant to profess - that wasn't something you could put into words. It was something that existed at the heart of an angel's very being but was hopelessly beyond a demon's comprehension. It was _ineffable_.

Crowley's desperation to make Aziraphale believe him through grand gestures and melodramatic speeches only served to prove that lack of understanding. Aziraphale eventually learned to steel himself against these confessions. They stopped tearing holes in his heart and instead left him with a cold, empty numbness. With time, Crowley stopped trying. That was better for them both. Aziraphale's last embers of hope were allowed to glow dimly at the centre of his being and Crowley learnt to content himself with dinners at the Ritz and stale bread thrown to ducks in St James's Park.

Decades passed, though you couldn't tell from the bookshop interior forever untouched by the passage of time. Aziraphale looked up from the first editions he was cataloguing and found Crowley gazing at him. The angel had been rambling enthusiastically about the unique binding of one particular tome when he'd felt the shift in the air. It was subtle, a feeling just beyond his reach, but he knew it instantly. It had derailed his train of thought and left no survivors. The glow within him surged, reaching out to meet the shift in the atmosphere and seeped from every pore. It was brilliant, blinding, beautiful and at the same time completely invisible. The only physical evidence of it came in the form of a genuine, sparkling smile from Aziraphale as he reached out to cup Crowley's cheek in one soft hand. They gazed at each other for what could have been a moment or could have been a lifetime.

The question lingered at the back of Aziraphale’s mind as he gently ran his thumb along the demon’s jaw. What had caused this shift? Something inside told him that the glimmer of hope he’d been clinging to had always been right. It was likely that the spark of goodness Aziraphale had been able to sense in Crowley wasn’t just goodness after all. It was something more, something deeper, something that called to the angel’s very essence and drew them together like magnets. This love was something Aziraphale had always been able to feel on some level, but it was also something Crowley would never have been able to tap into while he was trying. It wasn’t in the dramatic declarations or the expensive dinners or the physical connections. It was in the comfortable silence in between. The wordless conversations. The moments of true altruism that the other would never even know about. It needed Crowley to finally give in and simply allow himself to be, to stop fighting for Aziraphale’s attentions and struggling to prove himself. He needed to understand that they were already enough.

Neither spoke. They didn't need to.

Aziraphale sank back into the worn leather of his chesterfield and began thumbing through his new treasures. Crowley pushed his hair back from his face and reached for his wine glass. To the casual observer, the evening appeared to continue as so many had before. For Crowley and Aziraphale, though, everything had changed.


End file.
